Kari the elephant

by Dhan Gopal Mukerji

t took us much longer to return home. We lost nearly twenty-four hours in a jungle where we had the strangest experiences of our lives. We had already covered half the distance when one day at noon we reached the river across which lay the jungle. It was so hot that Kari would not go any further. The moment he smelled the moist earth of the river bank, he literally ran into the water and lay there. Kopee and I had to sit on his back, while the waves of the river played around us as the waves of the sea play around an island. Kari kept his trunk above the water, and when he moved we almost fell off his back. The monkey clung to me, for, as you know, monkeys do not know how to swim. There are two reasons why monkeys are afraid of the water; not only are they unable to swim because the fingers of their hands are not webbed together as are ducks' toes, but being accustomed to go through the air by leaping from branch to branch, they think that they should leap from place to place in the water.

Seeing that the elephant was wayward, I told Kopee to hold on to my head. Then I swam ashore and waited for the elephant to come out. Now that we were off his back, he raised himself a little above the water and began to draw vast quantities of water up his trunk and snorted it out at the monkey who was running up and down the shore, chattering fiercely and keeping at a safe distance to avoid being drenched.

This shows that elephants have a sense of humor. They always know where to keep a monkey, and it is the monkey's business to know when the elephant is going to indulge in humor.

As elephants do not know that monkeys cannot swim, I was afraid that if Kopee was not careful, Kari might throw him into the river for fun, and that would have been the end of him.

I soon forgot the elephant and the monkey, however, and fell asleep on the river bank. I was awakened by a terrible cry from the monkey and a trumpeting from the elephant. I sat up with a start and I saw Kopee sitting on the ground shivering with terror, and Kari standing in front of him, waving his trunk in the air and trumpeting for all he was worth. I lay on the ground and lifted myself on my elbows. Through the elephant's legs I saw a great snake, right under him, held almost between his fore-legs. My blood congealed in terror. Of course Kari was five years old; his skin was so thick that the cobra could never bite deep enough to bury its poisonous fangs in his arteries. The monkey was hypnotized with fear, but he could neither run away, nor go forward, nor come to me. He sat there shivering with terror.

I crept slyly around the elephant and approached Kopee. I knew that if I touched him, he would turn around and bite me. He was so frightened that anything that touched him would mean to his excited brain only the sting of the snake. The idea that he would be stung to death had taken possession of the whole animal.

I could now see what had happened. The elephant had stepped on the middle of the snake. Its back was broken and it could not move, but there was life in the rest of its body and it was standing erect like a sharp column of ebony, its black hood with a white mark on it spread out as large as the palm of a man's hand. Of course, it could not stay in that position long. It swayed and almost fell to the ground. The moment that happened, Kari raised his foot and put it down on the snake's neck. But the snake lifted up its head in such a way that whenever there was a chance for the elephant to put his foot on its head it would immediately raise itself on its broken back. Its agony must have been great, yet it would not give in for a long time.

As the snake could not move with its back broken and the foot of the elephant still on it, I knew I had better go and kill it with a stick. As I approached it with my stick, the monkey's eyes which had been fixed on the snake, suddenly moved. He looked at me and bounded off with a piercing, chattering yell towards the nearest tree. The spirit of terror that had held him hypnotized so long was broken at last, for he had seen someone who could kill the snake.

The moment the monkey bounded off, the snake stung the elephant's toe nails, those horny plates around his feet. This is a vital spot, as the arteries come very near the surface. Knowing this, Kari raised his foot. Evidently he was not hurt, but I was not sure how long he could stand on three legs. I was also afraid that he would fall and bring his trunk near the snake, and any snake can poison an elephant by stinging the end of his trunk. I hit the snake on the head with my stick, but instead of striking his head, the stick slipped down that ebony column which was still standing erect. Fortunately, in order to avert the next blow, the snake fell on his side. That very instant the up-raised foot of the elephant was on his head.